DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett

In the months after the 2014 Ferguson shooting, the wide array of groups and individuals who identified as part of the Black Lives Matter movement struggled to find a footing. Critics accused them of causing commotion at political events and protests without offering solutions. In a candid, filmed exchange after a 2015 campaign event, Hillary Clinton told Black Lives Matter activists to focus on changing laws, not changing hearts.

Q&A: Brittany Packnett

Favorite book this year:

“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Does America need to be “made great again”?

No. America needs to finally be equitable and free for all of us—especially those who have been oppressed since our founding—but still give us the gift of being incredible Americans everyday.

Best Trump historical comparison:

I don’t know that any comparison would be wholly accurate.

Something to miss about President Obama?

His personal integrity and willingness to listen intently before taking action.

A word of advice to the next president:

Be bold: Be more concerned with progress and equity than reelection.

By that point, DeRay Mckesson and Brittany Packnett, both early participants in the demonstrations that spawned Black Lives Matter, already had a plan to make that slogan a political reality. Last August, Mckesson, a public schools administrator in Baltimore who ran unsuccessfully for mayor there this year, and Packnett, a St. Louis-based Teach for America vice president—along with activists Johnetta Elzie and Samuel Sinyangwe—co-founded Campaign Zero, the first effort to organize activists around a set of policies to stop police violence. Their 10-pronged set of demands in part echoes recommendations released by President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, of which Packnett is a member. But Campaign Zero pushed further with ideas like ending “broken windows” policing, banning quotas for tickets and canceling a Pentagon program that gives military gear to police. Next the group plans to release model legislation for these ideas. As police departments and governments begin to reform, and activists continue to push them, they will have in Campaign Zero a set of ambitious but practical guidelines. “We’re not anti-police,” Packnett says. “We’re anti-violence, period.”